Generate the Free Brain

The list below comes from Kenneth Patchen on page 264 of his book The Journal of Albion Moonlight

So it is the duty of the artist to discourage all traces of shame
To extend all boundaries
To fog them in right over the plate
To kill only what is ridiculous
To establish problems
To ignore solutions
To listen to on one
To omit nothing
To contradict everything
To generate the free brain
To bear no cross
To take part in no crucifixion
To tinkle a warning when mankind strays
To explode upon all parties
To wound deeper than the soldier
To heal this poor obstinate monkey once and for all
To have kids with pretty angels
To display his dancing seed
To sail only in polar seas
To laugh at every situation
To besiege all their cities
To exhaust the primitive
To follow every false track
To verify the irrational
To exaggerate all things
To inhabit everyone
To lubricate each proportion
To experience only experience
To deviate at every point
To offer no examples
To dismiss all support
To make one monster at least
To go underground immediately
To smell the shark's ass
To multiply all opinions
To work only in the distance
To extend all shapes
To acquire a sublime reputation
To consort forever with the runaway
To sport the glacial eye
To direct all smouldering ambitions
To frequent only the exterminating planets
To kidnap the phantom's first-born
To forego no succulent filth
To masquerade as the author of every platitude



To overwhelm the mariner with improper charts
To expose himself to every ridicule
To ambush their blow-nose Providence
To set a flame in the high air
To exclaim at the commonplace alone
To cause the unseen eyes to open
To advance with the majesty of the praying serpent
To contrive always to be caught with his pants down
To sprinkle mule-milk on the lifted brows of virgins
To attach no importance whatever to his activity
To admire only the absurd
To be concerned with every profession save his own
To raise a fortuitous stink on the boulevards of truth and beauty
To desire an electrifiable intercourse with a female alligator
To lift the flesh above the suffering
To forgive the beautiful its disconsolate deceit
To send the world away to crawl under his discarded pedestals
To have the cunning of the imperilled wave
To hide his lamentations in the shredded lungs of the tempest
To recommend stone eyelashes for all candid lookers
To attribute every magnificence to himself
To maintain that the earth is neither round nor flat but a scomaphoid
To flash his vengeful badge at every abyss
To be revolted by only the sacred cow which piddles at the toes of the swamp
To kneel with the blind and drunk brigands and learn their songs
To happen
To embrace the intemperate hermaphrodite of memory
It is the artist's duty to be alive
To drag people into glittering occupations
To return always to the renewing stranger
To observe only the funereal spectator
To assume the ecstasy in all conceivable attitudes
To follow the plundering whirlpool to its source
To cry out nervously with every knock
To stock his shelves with plaintive confessions and pernicious diaries
To outflow the volcano in semen and phlegm
To be treacherous when nothing is to be gained
To enrich himself at the expense of everyone
To reel in an exquisite sobriety
To blush perpetually in gaping innocence
To drift happily through the ruined race-intelligence
To burrow beneath the subconscious
To defend the unreal at the cost of his reason
To obey each outrageous impulse
To commit his company to all enchantments
To rage against the sacrificing shepherds
To return to a place remote from his native land
To pursue the languid executioner to his hall bedroom
To torment the spirit-lice
To cover the mud with distinguished vegetation
To regain the emperor's chair
To pass from one world to another in carefree devotion
To withdraw only when all have been profaned
To contract every battering disease
To peel off all substances from the face of horror
To glue himself to every lascivious breast
To hurl his vigorous cone into every trough
To unroll the hide from that repugnant rhinoceros Time
To refrain from no ownership
To crowd the squat-rumped centuries into his own special residence
To plunge beyond their smoking armpits